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07 December 2016

The National Pipeline Lie (updated 10dec16)

George Rebane

As we observe the 75th anniversary of ‘The day that will live in infamy’, it is good to reflect on what brought about that day, and several such days since then. Traditionally isolationists in the early 20th century years, we were told that WW1 was the war to end all wars. Most people knew that to have been a big lie, but it became a national one during the depression as the government tried one failed intervention after another that saw unemployment remain at revolution thresholds as Europe and Asia were again in flames. Under FDR our military was reduced to below third world levels which was duly noted by Herr Hitler and Tojo-sama.

When we finally did start building up our forces, the government continued to tell us that we were safe, especially from any sneak attack. Tragically underlining this national security message was the secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, who on 4 December 1941 assured the country that “The Navy is not going to be caught napping.” The rest is history.

The chronicle of national lies is unending and, if anything, has picked up in this age of instant and pervasive communications through now countless social media channels that daily pump out everything from government propaganda to purposely injected ‘fake news’, all to an audience that is somewhere between under- and uneducated. A currently prominent national lie envelops and sustains the hullabaloo around the Dakota access pipeline. In North Dakota local tribes have been joined by leftwing activists from all quarters and of all hues to protest the completion of the pipeline. The standoff, abetted by the lamestream and President Obama, has grown massive and now teeters on the edge of violence.

Most people still believe that the standoff is about tribal rights, water, and the environment, instead of the reality that the White House continues to ignore the rule of law. Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is a voice of sanity who attempts to set the record straight in his 7dec16 ‘What the Dakota Access Pipeline is Really About’. In it he counters the “preaching about the pipeline from the press, environmental activists, musicians and politicians in other states” who “more often than not … are informed by little more than a Facebook post”, and lays out the easily verifiable “ground truth” in four succinct points –

This isn’t about tribal rights or protecting cultural resources; …

Two federal courts have rejected claims that the tribe wasn’t consulted; …

Other tribes and parties did participate in the process; …

This isn’t about water protection; …

The question then becomes, what is the standoff all about. I leave the obvious and not so obvious answers for our readers to explain and expand. No doubt we will also encounter the two-worlds paradigm in treating this issue.

To illustrate how disconnected we have become as a nation, we now see examples of how our putatively smartest people are flummoxed as they anticipate communicating with the new Trump administration. Noteworthy is Google which has put out the help-wanted for “someone who can communicate with those strange humanlike life-forms: conservatives.” Their posted job offering is for a manager of “Conservative Outreach and Public Policy Partnerships”, someone who “will act as Google’s liaison to conservative, libertarian, and free market groups” as a “part organizer, part advocate, and part policy wonk.”

The bottom line here is that Google and many other Silicon Valley top management teams have become politically so insular that not only don’t they know what other than progressive public policy alternatives exist, they don’t even know how talk to the people who promote smaller government, fewer regulations, reduction of corporatism, competitive markets, and expanded liberties. See what happens when you get your degrees from universities with socialist humanities departments. (more here)

[10dec16 update] Ramirez reminds us of Obama's latest version of his old, and now preserved, national lie.

Comments

Dr. R, I had a great uncle who was a Navy diver at Pearl who survived the attack. He was very involved in the attempted rescue of the poor souls trapped in capsized vessels. He spoke of the delay caused by the flaming bunker oil. They repurposed some of the big guns as costal defense, amazing accomplishment.
The reality is because the rising sun failed to hit the dry docks and oil tank farms they let most of the capitol ships come back to the fight better than ever.
He went on to run a west coast port for many years. To this day I still have the fork and knife set salvaged from the Arizona wreck.
God Bless all our warriors.